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老黑学校缺钱，拿中国教授下手。老黑大学真不能长干，否则必遭欺负。(article
credit belongs to Chronicle.Com
Southern U. Investigates How a Fired Professor Kept Working for a Year
By Audrey Williams June
At least one thing about Dong-Sheng Guo is indisputable: He taught physics
at Southern University at Baton Rouge during the past academic year, just as
he has done for two decades.
What is in dispute is whether Mr. Guo should have been in front of the
classroom those two semesters at all.
University officials say that Mr. Guo was fired in May 2012, during a period
of financial exigency that the institution said allowed it to cut tenured
faculty members and programs in order to offset the effects of enrollment
declines and shrinking state appropriations. (That view is disputed by the
American Association of University Professors, which has censured Southern.)
But the chairman of the physics department, Diola Bagayoko, says Southern
botched Mr. Guo's termination process from the outset and that left him no
choice but to allow his colleague to keep working.
However, Mr. Bagayoko said on Tuesday night that he had been told that day
that the campus's chancellor, James L. Llorens, had decided to strip him of
his role as chair because of how Mr. Guo's case played out.
University officials had previously said that the institution followed the
proper legal procedures when firing Mr. Guo and that the matter of how he
was still able to teach was under investigation. Edward Pratt, a spokesman
for the university, could not be reached Tuesday night to comment on the
status of Mr. Bagayoko's chairmanship.
Earlier, however, when asked about who might be the recipient of any
disciplinary action, Mr. Pratt said that he would not discuss personnel
matters. Disciplinary action, if appropriate, would follow once the
investigation was complete, Mr. Pratt said.
Mr. Guo could not be reached for comment.
No Documents
Mr. Bagayoko maintains that he did the right thing on behalf of Mr. Guo. "No
one sent me any documents about his termination. I was not copied on the
notice," said Mr. Bagayoko, a professor of physics who has worked at
Southern since 1984. "When he told me about it, he said he was going to
appeal. When he didn't get a response, I have absolutely no grounds or
authority to tell him not to teach."
That was especially true, said Mr. Bagayoko, when he saw that Mr. Guo had
been assigned classes for the fall semester last year.
Meanwhile, in the summer of 2012, the process to fire Mr. Guo, a professor
of physics, was already in motion. Southern mailed a termination letter,
dated May 30, to his home in Baton Rouge, but Mr. Guo was doing research in
China at the time. He then went to Tennessee to participate in a university-
backed summer research program for faculty members at Oak Ridge National
Laboratory.
When Mr. Guo returned to Louisiana, he saw the letter for the first time, he
said. That was on August 13, 2012, according to documents he submitted to
university officials as part of his appeal. He appealed his termination and
did so within a seven-day window provided for employees fired under
financial exigency—a period that Mr. Guo interpreted as beginning when he
actually received the letter.
Mr. Guo's main argument against his termination, set to be effective on June
30, 2012, hinged on the timing of the notice he received. According to his
account, he wasn't given 30 days' notice of his termination, as required,
within the period of financial exigency. A mail carrier attempted to deliver
the letter of termination to Mr. Guo's home on June 1, when he was out of
the country, but the letter should have already arrived a day earlier to
comply with the 30-day window, Mr. Bagayoko said.
"The burden is on the university to get the letter to him," Mr. Bagayoko
said.
Teaching Without Pay
Mr. Bagayoko said he hand-delivered Mr. Guo's appeal letter, dated August 17
, to the Baton Rouge campus's chancellor. But Mr. Guo told his colleague he
got no response before classes began, on August 20. So he showed up to teach
his scheduled four courses, plus a fifth for which Mr. Bagayoko could not
find an instructor.
Mr. Guo never got paid. At the end of the semester, Mr. Guo contacted the
university's human-resources department about his paychecks and received $20
,000 for the four classes; he had volunteered to teach the fifth one, an
overload, without pay, Mr. Bagayoko said.
Southern officials said earlier this month that Mr. Guo had been officially
removed from the payroll as of February 2013 but not from the system that
professors use to see what classes they'll be teaching. That system
automatically "rolls over" the courses that professors have taught in the
past, and that's why Mr. Guo was still slated to teach the same courses he
had the previous year.
By the end of the fall-2012 semester, according to documents that outline
the case, Mr. Guo had hired a lawyer who filed a petition for an injunction
to stop the termination. A state court rejected the request for an
injunction but did give Mr. Guo more time to appeal to the chancellor, who
denied the appeal in mid-January, shortly after classes for the spring
semester had begun.
In the meantime, Mr. Guo reported to class for the spring-2013 semester. His
classes were still assigned to him in the university's computer system.
Mr. Guo appealed his campus leader's decision to the president of the
Southern University system in late January. The president, in early March,
recommended to the Southern University Board of Supervisors that Mr. Guo's
appeal be denied.
The spring semester ended, and Mr. Guo, again, wasn't paid. Tracie J. Woods,
the university system's general counsel, recommended early this month that
Mr. Guo be paid as an adjunct professor for the classes he taught in the
spring.
Undetected Professor
Ms. Woods said that Mr. Guo's termination "was legal and executed according
to financial-emergency procedures," according to a letter she wrote to the
Board of Supervisor's academic-affairs committee.
Mr. Guo's final appeal hearing, before the board, was scheduled for August
16. The board postponed a decision until early September, when it then voted
not to consider Mr. Guo's appeal.
It's unclear whether Mr. Guo plans to turn to the courts to get his job back
. Mr. Guo's lawyer didn't return a phone call seeking comment.
It's also not clear exactly how Mr. Guo's presence on the campus went
undetected for so long. The university system's lawyer, Ms. Woods, in her
letter to the board's academic-affairs committee, wrote that Southern
University at Baton Rouge had made some "administrative mistakes" that
allowed Mr. Guo to work for two additional semesters. But she had sharp
words for Mr. Guo and the physics department that Mr. Bagayoko leads. They "
knew Dr. Guo was terminated," she said, but the department let him keep
working anyway.
Mr. Bagayoko disagreed. "Some other people in the department may have known,
but I didn't know," he said. "That statement is directly attacking my
integrity."
credit belongs to Chronicle.Com
Southern U. Investigates How a Fired Professor Kept Working for a Year
By Audrey Williams June
At least one thing about Dong-Sheng Guo is indisputable: He taught physics
at Southern University at Baton Rouge during the past academic year, just as
he has done for two decades.
What is in dispute is whether Mr. Guo should have been in front of the
classroom those two semesters at all.
University officials say that Mr. Guo was fired in May 2012, during a period
of financial exigency that the institution said allowed it to cut tenured
faculty members and programs in order to offset the effects of enrollment
declines and shrinking state appropriations. (That view is disputed by the
American Association of University Professors, which has censured Southern.)
But the chairman of the physics department, Diola Bagayoko, says Southern
botched Mr. Guo's termination process from the outset and that left him no
choice but to allow his colleague to keep working.
However, Mr. Bagayoko said on Tuesday night that he had been told that day
that the campus's chancellor, James L. Llorens, had decided to strip him of
his role as chair because of how Mr. Guo's case played out.
University officials had previously said that the institution followed the
proper legal procedures when firing Mr. Guo and that the matter of how he
was still able to teach was under investigation. Edward Pratt, a spokesman
for the university, could not be reached Tuesday night to comment on the
status of Mr. Bagayoko's chairmanship.
Earlier, however, when asked about who might be the recipient of any
disciplinary action, Mr. Pratt said that he would not discuss personnel
matters. Disciplinary action, if appropriate, would follow once the
investigation was complete, Mr. Pratt said.
Mr. Guo could not be reached for comment.
No Documents
Mr. Bagayoko maintains that he did the right thing on behalf of Mr. Guo. "No
one sent me any documents about his termination. I was not copied on the
notice," said Mr. Bagayoko, a professor of physics who has worked at
Southern since 1984. "When he told me about it, he said he was going to
appeal. When he didn't get a response, I have absolutely no grounds or
authority to tell him not to teach."
That was especially true, said Mr. Bagayoko, when he saw that Mr. Guo had
been assigned classes for the fall semester last year.
Meanwhile, in the summer of 2012, the process to fire Mr. Guo, a professor
of physics, was already in motion. Southern mailed a termination letter,
dated May 30, to his home in Baton Rouge, but Mr. Guo was doing research in
China at the time. He then went to Tennessee to participate in a university-
backed summer research program for faculty members at Oak Ridge National
Laboratory.
When Mr. Guo returned to Louisiana, he saw the letter for the first time, he
said. That was on August 13, 2012, according to documents he submitted to
university officials as part of his appeal. He appealed his termination and
did so within a seven-day window provided for employees fired under
financial exigency—a period that Mr. Guo interpreted as beginning when he
actually received the letter.
Mr. Guo's main argument against his termination, set to be effective on June
30, 2012, hinged on the timing of the notice he received. According to his
account, he wasn't given 30 days' notice of his termination, as required,
within the period of financial exigency. A mail carrier attempted to deliver
the letter of termination to Mr. Guo's home on June 1, when he was out of
the country, but the letter should have already arrived a day earlier to
comply with the 30-day window, Mr. Bagayoko said.
"The burden is on the university to get the letter to him," Mr. Bagayoko
said.
Teaching Without Pay
Mr. Bagayoko said he hand-delivered Mr. Guo's appeal letter, dated August 17
, to the Baton Rouge campus's chancellor. But Mr. Guo told his colleague he
got no response before classes began, on August 20. So he showed up to teach
his scheduled four courses, plus a fifth for which Mr. Bagayoko could not
find an instructor.
Mr. Guo never got paid. At the end of the semester, Mr. Guo contacted the
university's human-resources department about his paychecks and received $20
,000 for the four classes; he had volunteered to teach the fifth one, an
overload, without pay, Mr. Bagayoko said.
Southern officials said earlier this month that Mr. Guo had been officially
removed from the payroll as of February 2013 but not from the system that
professors use to see what classes they'll be teaching. That system
automatically "rolls over" the courses that professors have taught in the
past, and that's why Mr. Guo was still slated to teach the same courses he
had the previous year.
By the end of the fall-2012 semester, according to documents that outline
the case, Mr. Guo had hired a lawyer who filed a petition for an injunction
to stop the termination. A state court rejected the request for an
injunction but did give Mr. Guo more time to appeal to the chancellor, who
denied the appeal in mid-January, shortly after classes for the spring
semester had begun.
In the meantime, Mr. Guo reported to class for the spring-2013 semester. His
classes were still assigned to him in the university's computer system.
Mr. Guo appealed his campus leader's decision to the president of the
Southern University system in late January. The president, in early March,
recommended to the Southern University Board of Supervisors that Mr. Guo's
appeal be denied.
The spring semester ended, and Mr. Guo, again, wasn't paid. Tracie J. Woods,
the university system's general counsel, recommended early this month that
Mr. Guo be paid as an adjunct professor for the classes he taught in the
spring.
Undetected Professor
Ms. Woods said that Mr. Guo's termination "was legal and executed according
to financial-emergency procedures," according to a letter she wrote to the
Board of Supervisor's academic-affairs committee.
Mr. Guo's final appeal hearing, before the board, was scheduled for August
16. The board postponed a decision until early September, when it then voted
not to consider Mr. Guo's appeal.
It's unclear whether Mr. Guo plans to turn to the courts to get his job back
. Mr. Guo's lawyer didn't return a phone call seeking comment.
It's also not clear exactly how Mr. Guo's presence on the campus went
undetected for so long. The university system's lawyer, Ms. Woods, in her
letter to the board's academic-affairs committee, wrote that Southern
University at Baton Rouge had made some "administrative mistakes" that
allowed Mr. Guo to work for two additional semesters. But she had sharp
words for Mr. Guo and the physics department that Mr. Bagayoko leads. They "
knew Dr. Guo was terminated," she said, but the department let him keep
working anyway.
Mr. Bagayoko disagreed. "Some other people in the department may have known,
but I didn't know," he said. "That statement is directly attacking my
integrity."